Bound, page 9
‘Bugger it.’ I’d never seen him this agitated. ‘Shit, bugger and fuck it.’ He was pacing now. ‘The bastard has done a runner.’
‘Who?’ I asked, although you didn’t need a degree in crystal-ball-gazing to know what he was going to say next. Judging by the abrupt thrust of hands onto the desk next to me, Smithy’s clairvoyant skills were as sharply honed as mine.
‘Bloody Powell,’ Paul said as he sat heavily on the corner of his desk.
There was a moment of silence before Smithy lumbered to his feet. ‘You’re telling me we’ve finally got the evidence to nail that murdering bastard, and you bunch of Nancy girls can’t even find him?’
Going by the airborne keys incident and the look on Paul’s face, I could tell that his normal unflappable composure had been marginally flapped. Smithy’s face did not require further interpretation.
‘Hey, it’s no one’s fault,’ I said in an attempt to placate the two aggrieved egos. ‘Powell has been in the business long enough and survived enough close calls to know when his number’s up, so it’s small wonder he’s gone to ground. Did you actually think he was going to give up easy?’
Smithy gave me a scathing look. ‘That would be right – defend your useless prick boyfriend, won’t you? We all know where your loyalties lie.’ God, his mood hadn’t improved any from this morning – he was still as tetchy as hell. Paul looked like he was about to respond in kind, so I threw him a ‘don’t bother’ look and returned my attention to Smithy.
‘Don’t be an ass, Smithy.’ Just because he was sore and grumpy didn’t mean he could take it out on everyone else. We were all as anxious as he was about this arrest. ‘You know damn well this was a likelihood. If it were you in Powell’s position, would you stick around? No, I didn’t think so. We’ll find him. He’s too big and New Zealand is way too small for him to hide for long. And I’m sure there are plenty of his business opposition out there who would be only too pleased to dob him in should the occasion arise.’ It was a dog-eat-dog world, after all, and Powell had amassed a lot of enemies. I turned back to Paul, who was still looking a bit dark on it. ‘What about Sandhurst? Have they arrested him yet?’
He shook his head. ‘That crew aren’t back with him yet, and it’s been a while so I’d be guessing not.’
So the Fat Bastard and The Cockroach had scarpered.
Shit.
28
DI Johns was walking around with what seemed like a low-pressure weather system surging ahead of him. Even the big boys were making excuses to vacate the building and get out of his path. I decided this was a wise strategy so headed for the stairwell with a mind to escape. I had lugged open the fire escape door when I heard the heart-stopping call from behind me.
‘Shephard!’
It was tempting to pretend I didn’t hear him, but considering the staff in the watchhouse could probably hear him four floors down, I didn’t think I’d get away with it. I let the door swing closed and turned around.
‘Sir?’
‘Where are you at with the Henderson woman?’
‘I saw her this morning and enquired as to her knowledge of Powell and Sandhurst.’
‘And?’
‘She knew of them, recognised Powell from a photograph, but wasn’t sure where from.’
‘That’s not good enough.’ He hadn’t lowered his voice any, despite our proximity. ‘I need more certainty than that.’
‘Well she is still in quite a fragile state, sir. I couldn’t press her on it too much.’ I was about to remind him of the fact she’d witnessed her husband being murdered and had just had surgery when he interjected.
‘I don’t care what state she is in. We need every bit of information we can get. You get back down there and find out more, Detective.’ The way he spat out the last word left me in no doubt as to how much he felt I merited the title. ‘Go down and question her again. Stay there until she gives us the information we need. I don’t care how long it takes you. Go and do your bloody job properly this time.’
With that he turned and stormed off down the corridor.
I stared daggers into the space between his shoulder blades, willing them to twitch, until he disappeared out of sight around the corner.
‘Heartless bastard,’ I said as I flipped him the fingers.
I did go to the hospital, but I didn’t obey orders. There was no way in hell I was about to go back into that woman’s room and tell her that a) we hadn’t managed to apprehend the bastards who killed her husband, and then b) The Boss was insisting that I stay there and grill her until her memory managed to cough up the right information. I’d already worked on my story in case Dickhead Johns decided to follow up on it. I was going to say that Jill Henderson had been taken down to the X-ray department and they didn’t know how long she was going to be. I’d go back and talk to her in the morning. Easy. Hopefully a night of drug-induced sleep would help both her state of wellbeing and her memory.
For some stupid reason my other appointment at the hospital had given me a case of the butterflies in my stomach. However, they disappeared the moment I saw Mum, Steve and Sheryl waiting for me at a table in the foyer café.
Mum looked dead on her feet. She didn’t have bags under her eyes, she had haversacks, and I felt a little pang inside at the thought of what she was going through right now. Steve stood up and gave me a crush of a man hug. It was good to see him.
‘Hiya, sorry I’m late.’ I leaned down and gave Mum a kiss on the cheek, then Sheryl, before I sat down. They’d already ordered coffees and looked like they’d been picking away at the muffins on their plates. Mum must have been feeling bad because she didn’t make a comment about my tardiness.
‘You made it?’ I said to Steve. ‘Have you got someone to look after the farm?’
‘Just a day trip, I’m afraid. I’m heading back later.’ That would make for a big day all around, and like the rest of us his eyes were bearing the hallmarks of tiredness.
‘How’s Dad doing this afternoon?’ I asked.
Mum and Sheryl looked at each other before Sheryl spoke.
‘They’re transferring him over to the hospice later today. They’ve got a space there for him now.’
It wasn’t unexpected – we all knew this was pretty much a one-way ticket for Dad now – but still, that seemed pretty final.
‘Has he deteriorated?’
‘He’s not improving. He’ll be a lot more comfortable there. The rooms are so much nicer and more private than in the hospital, and they’ll do a better job of controlling his pain, I think.’
‘How’s he feel about it? He understands what’s going on?’
‘You know your dad,’ Mum said. ‘He doesn’t like to be a bother, so he’s protesting a bit, but I think he’s pleased at the thought of getting out of here.’
I looked at the sag of Mum’s shoulders and the state of her normally immaculate hair, and felt a little guilty at my less-than-charitable thoughts about her earlier. I’d been here for a full two minutes and she hadn’t fired a barb at me. It was all taking its toll.
‘When are they transferring him?’ I asked. If I kept asking about the details then I wouldn’t run the risk of losing it myself.
‘They said around four o’clock,’ Sheryl said.
‘Do they have set visiting hours, or can we come and go as we please?’
‘They are completely flexible. Trust me, it will be so much better at the hospice. I know some of the staff there. They are wonderful.’ For once I felt pleased Sheryl was there, and thankful for her gentle reassurance.
‘So you’re actually planning to visit us down there, are you?’
I turned, my heart sinking at Mum’s question. ‘Of course I am, why wouldn’t I?’
‘Well you seem so busy with your work I was beginning to think Dad wasn’t a priority for you.’
I felt a wave of heat rush up into my face. Was that what she thought? That I didn’t have the time to come and see my own dad? I was about to bite back when I saw the embarrassed look on Sheryl’s face and realised that, no, this was just Mum projecting her own fears and I was the nearest live target. She was hurting. Don’t bite.
‘Hopefully you’ll manage to spend a bit more time with us down there than you have here. Well, I hope so, because it’s too hard having to try and explain to your dad why you don’t want to see him,’ Mum said as she looked away from me and in the general direction of the wards. She couldn’t have orchestrated the tears better. Lavishing on the guilt. Knowing it was her fear and grief speaking didn’t prevent the pang in my chest.
She just couldn’t resist.
29
‘Declan, how are you doing?’ I noticed Henderson junior as I walked out of the hospital entranceway. I had to dodge around a couple of smokers to get to him. One of them was attired in his classy hospital gown and dragging his intravenous drip stand with him. He stopped and took up his post under the smoke-free zone sign. The definitive diehard smoker.
‘All right, I suppose,’ he said, shuffling his feet and looking embarrassed in the way only a gangly teenage boy could manage.
‘You off to see your mum?’ Rhetorical question really, but if I’d learned anything about teenagers, it paid to keep it simple and state the obvious. Well, to a point – there was a fine line between being friendly and communicative, and coming across as plain, old dumb.
‘Yeah…’ He paused, like he was going to say something else and then changed his mind. He shoved his hands into his pockets and swayed backward and forward on his heels.
‘Are you a bit worried about her?’ I asked. ‘I didn’t think she seemed too good this morning. How’d she seem to you? You’ve been up already?’
‘She seems to be getting worse, not better,’ he said, the relief at the opportunity to voice the thought apparent in his eyes. I couldn’t imagine how hard it must be for him right now. He’d stumbled across that appalling scene in his own home, seen his father’s devastated body and was mourning that loss, and the one person he needed to turn to right now was too tied up coping with her own physical and emotional pain to be able to support him. ‘The doctors don’t seem to be helping her much. Well, they are with surgery and stuff, but it’s like she’s, well, I suppose it’s like shellshock, isn’t it? Like soldiers get? Or post-traumatic stress, or whatever? Whenever I see her she seems to cry more. Can’t they give her something for that?’
A hell of a lot of Valium, wine and plenty of time was the thought that came to mind, but somehow I didn’t think that was what the professionals would be prescribing.
‘They’ll be treating her the best they can. But if you’re concerned, you should go and talk to one of the doctors. They will listen to you. Your grandad can ask them too. You don’t have to just sit back and watch.’ I wondered how much care he was getting. Those narrow shoulders seemed to be hefting a hell of a load. ‘Have you been offered any counselling at all, to talk about everything that’s happened?’
‘They had this nice guy from Victim Support, and they’ve given me an appointment with a shrink. I don’t know if I want to go, though.’
‘I really think you should. It makes a difference. In fact, I’ll check up on you and make sure you go. Believe me, the last thing you want is me nagging you and being on your case.’
He smiled at my playful threat. Even though he was only seventeen he was a good foot taller than me.
‘S’pose so.’
A thought suddenly popped into my mind out of the blue. It happened occasionally. ‘Actually, Declan, do you mind if I ask you a couple of quick questions about the case?’
He looked around at all the people coming in and out and shrugged. ‘Okay.’
I ushered him further along the footpath, towards the children’s pavilion, so we couldn’t be overheard.
‘I was wondering if you had heard of a couple of men: Jacob Sandhurst and Gideon Powell.’
He looked blank, as though nothing was clicking.
‘Perhaps if I showed you some photographs of them?’
He nodded.
Fortunately I still had their mugshots in my satchel. I fossicked around before getting my hands on the right pieces of paper.
He pointed his fingers at both of them. ‘They do look familiar,’ he said. ‘In fact I think they’ve been out to the house. I think Dad had them around once, or something.’
‘Are you certain?’ I asked. When I’d showed the pictures to Jill she’d said they had never been out to the house. Mind you, her memory probably wasn’t that reliable at the moment. ‘How long ago would that have been?’
‘Recently. Within the last month or so.’
‘Was your mum home then?’
‘Ah, I don’t know. Dad introduced them to me, but I didn’t pay that much attention. I think I was on the X-Box at the time, so I couldn’t say.’
Suitably vague. But it did confirm that both men had been at the house, and yet the two of them had denied ever being there. Bloody liars. These webs of deceit always caught up with you in the end, so it was another nail in the coffin for them, as it were.
‘Thanks, Declan. That’s great – really helpful. But I will need you to pop down to the station and make a formal statement about it. Can you do that later today?’
He looked embarrassed, yet also a little pleased to have been some help. ‘Sure.’
30
Paul wasn’t the only one in an almighty snit about the lack of arrests.
‘What did that woman say?’ The voice boomed from the doorway.
I jumped in my seat. I’d been concentrating so hard on the report before me, my anti-arsehole radar hadn’t picked him up. Sonia started so badly I thought she’d get whiplash. Her wanker-watch defence systems clearly still needed fine-tuning.
‘Sorry, sir?’
‘What did Jill Henderson give us?’ He said it real slow, like I was stupid.
‘She wasn’t there when I called in, they’d taken her down for some X-rays.’ I hoped I was convincing.
He narrowed his eyes. ‘You didn’t wait?’
‘She had only just gone, and the nurse said it could take up to an hour, so I thought it would be a better use of time to come back here and do some work.’ I impressed myself with that line. Surely he couldn’t argue with that. I briefly toyed with the idea of mentioning Declan’s revelation, but decided in the interests of safety to wait until his statement was signed, sealed and delivered.
The Boss did some subterranean grumbling and then looked from me to Sonia and then back again. ‘You two look like you need some real work to do. Go and find out where they bought those masks from.’
‘Haven’t the regulars done that already?’ I asked.
‘Sorry, was that you just answering back, Detective Shephard?’ God, he was in a right shitty liver. ‘I will repeat myself, for the sake of the stupid. Go and find out where those pieces of shit bought those masks.’
I looked at Sonia. She looked at me.
‘Now!’ he bellowed.
We listened as his footsteps diminished into the distance.
Sonia expelled a large breath. ‘Boy, is he always such an arsehole?’
‘Yes,’ I said, and then added, ‘but not so much to the men,’ and left it at that.
We were down in Lucky Coins, the shop containing the biggest collection of cheap, mass-produced, made-in-China crap you could find on the streets of Dunedin. And as usual it was packed full of people who lived for cheap, mass-produced, made-in-China crap. They all looked glazed over and ecstatic, like they were in the grip of some religious trance, worshipping the almighty god of junk. Ooh, plastic. These shops weren’t my most hated kinds of stores; my most hated were second-hand shops, but only just. I normally avoided these loose-change shops like the plague. There was something about the claustrophobic, teetering, packed-to-the-gunwales aisles, and the smell, with its hint of chemical acridity. You could almost smell the carcinogens.
Sonia was looking at a fluorescent-pink lei garland. She held it up against her face.
‘What do you think? Is it me?’
‘Nah, I think you should go for the lime-green feather boa.’
On the shelf above the high-class neckwear was a selection of masks. They ranged from the political – Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin; to the cartoonish – Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet; to the positively creepy – wart-ridden witches, eyeball-drooping zombies and a familiar and shudder-inducing clown.
‘Eureka,’ I said and pointed up to the clown. I could never look at clowns the same after reading Stephen King’s It. That had spoiled them for good.
‘There are at least a dozen of them there,’ she said. ‘I wonder how common they are.’ She reached up and grabbed one, saving my short-arsed self the embarrassment of having to ask. I liked this woman.
‘Time to have a wee chat to the shopkeeper.’
The Asian girl behind the counter looked all of fourteen years old, but I assumed that seeing as it was a school day, and the local truancy officers were pretty vigilant, she must have been at least eighteen.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked with a perfect Kiwi accent. I smiled at myself for being surprised.
‘Hi. Detectives Shephard and Richardson, Dunedin Police.’ I gave Sonia a promotion for the day. ‘We were wondering if you would have kept a record of sales of this particular mask over, say, the last three months? We need the information for an ongoing investigation.’
She shook her head slowly. ‘No, we wouldn’t. Items like that just go under the “costumes” button. So they wouldn’t show up individually. We have too much variety to have every product entered individually.’ Shop-speak for way too much crap.
‘Do you sell many of them?’
‘Actually, they’re one of our most popular masks, after Trump. We’d probably sell a dozen or so a week. People seem to like them for kids’ birthday parties.’
The sadistic sods must have liked scaring their kids then. It wasn’t my idea of entertainment.
